


Sherlock's New Adventure

by sobefarrington



Category: Doctor Who, Doctor Who (2005), Sherlock (TV)
Genre: Future, Future Fic, Time Travel
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2012-12-05
Updated: 2012-12-24
Packaged: 2017-11-20 09:07:53
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 2
Words: 2,217
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/583650
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/sobefarrington/pseuds/sobefarrington
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Sherlock gets to see what becomes of his only friend</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. The Ghost of Christmas Future

**Author's Note:**

> Don't let the title fool you.  
> This will be sad...  
> Once it's finished...  
> Sorry. :(

Sherlock stood in the trees, just out of John's gaze as the man Sherlock knew as his only friend made his way back to Mrs. Hudson and the black cab they arrived in. The man formerly known as the consulting detective held his resolve, keeping emotions in check for the time being and avoiding the horrible mess of being seen in tears. He took a deep breath as a voice behind him spoke clear.

"You ready Holmes?"

Sherlock had prepared for his new adventure as much as he could. He deduced his new companion when he met him almost three years ago and made amends with his own decisions in the meantime. He concluded it was the only thing to do, and he remained steadfast in his convictions. He held no regrets. Save for the one.

He didn't speak. Sherlock simply turned and fiddled with his jacket, closing the woollen trench coat tightly to him without attempting to fasten the buttons. He walked past the Doctor without acknowledgement of the man and entered the TARDIS.

The Doctor had come to expect this behavior from his new found friend and simply followed in time behind the Englishman. He had a journey planned for them. Once which he was sure would shed some light on the matters preceeding and give Sherlock a new outlook on his own decisions.

"So, Doctor," Sherlock finally made an effort as he stood between the door and the console. "What far away planet are we travelling to this time?"

The Doctor gave a smirk. He had planned this one. The last month or so was filled with a little research and favor-calling. The Doctor needed a specific date, without having to go see for himself first. What he discovered had alarmed him some, and he knew even moreso that he must follow through with his course of action. Shedding light. Playing the Ghost of Christmas Future. One of his favorite things to do.

"Earth."

And with that he threw back the throttle, launching the Tardis into a vortex of time space and dropping them fifty three years into the future.


	2. A Harsh Reality

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The Doctor shows Sherlock The Future.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sorry it took so long, and that it IS so long. But here it is.

Sherlock’s New Adventure – Chapter 2

The Tardis came to a ‘whrrr’ –ing halt, jolting an unprepared Sherlock as he gripped at the control panel for stability. The Doctor threw the doors open as his companion gathered his bearings and exited the Tardis in flamboyant, saloon-like fashion.

“London!” he announced, in case Sherlock didn’t recognize it. “Twenty sixty five.”

Sherlock followed the Doctor with some hesitation. Future London seemed very similar to the London he knew. People crowded the streets, packing in on the sidewalks to avoid being hit by the cars hovering down the streets.

Fashion, Sherlock noted, was at an all time low, with people seemingly competing to see who could find the brightest combination of clothing. Neon yellows, glow-in-the-dark greens. Oranges so extreme Sherlock had to turn away on a few occasions. They paired their clothing with hairstyles to match. Bold statements and shocking cuts to long curls and straight bobs, all of which were exadurated with coloured highlights and odd accessories. He wondered how they slept at night, the light from their closest must have been quite the distraction.

Sherlock followed his alien friend through the crowd. The Doctor and his flailing limbs finding their place within the surge of people, while Sherlock and his deductive personality fought ever second not to stand out so badly.

He took in everything he could, Sherlock did. Changes in the buildings that were pushing a hundred, two hundred, five hundred years old. New, massive structures that had been wedged between the old. The entire of the design trying to make one blend in with the other, so nothing seemed too out of place. How the streets had been converted to allow for use of hover vehicles, but been made to look like the cobble-stoned road of yesteryear. He noticed how even though the fashions had changed to the forward and exadurated, people for the most part were still afraid of judgment and insecure, using the crowd to blend in and hide while sporting their most stand-out-ish outfits.

The Doctor turned a quick corner and ducked into an alleyway two buildings up the corner of the main road.

Alleyways hadn’t changed much, Sherlock thought. This one was dark, damp and littered with garbage. The dumpster they were stationed beside had been over full for quite a while, the stench of rot and decay invading Sherlock’s nostrils without consent or warning. There were five doors Sherlock could make out. Four of them back exits for the buildings they were attached to. Emergency exits, service doors. One of them, Sherlock was quick to note, looked more like an office door. A simple wooden design with a glass insert and a company name printed across the front. It had clearly been purchased and installed for whatever business was operating from the alleyway. It was cheap, something that would easily give in if someone kicked it a few times, or threw a rock through the window. The other doors where heavy steel, manufactured to withstand a good thrashing. This business was either a place not worth breaking into, or the owner just didn’t care.

Sherlock was about to ask the Doctor what they were doing there when the alien moved to look at his wrist. He did this for Sherlock’s benefit, and counted down the seconds.

“Watch the door….three…. two…. One.”

The Doctor looked towards the out of place entrance and Sherlock’s eyes followed suit.

A small man exited the door, placing a small attaché case at his feet to allow his hands free to lock up for the day. He was a smaller man with hair so white Sherlock would have thought he’d dyed it that way. His clothes were modest for the times. Beiges and tans, dark blues, browns and blacks. Colors and styles that would have blended into the crowds of Sherlock’s time. The man struggled to bend and lift his case, turning in their direction to head home after a long day at the office.

His trousers were a muted brown, clearly pressed at the start of the day and only slightly wrinkled. Most likely from the hours of sitting that came with his job. His jumper partly hidden by his coat was a dark cream. It would have been brighter when it was new, but decades of wear and wash had faded its brilliance and made it sad to look at. His coat was long, stopping at the small man’s knees, made of wool and double breasted. It wasn’t quite cold enough to warrant it being buttoned up, but the man was well pushing a century and probably needed it to ward off the breeze that threatened his already deteriorating circulatory system.

His face was old. Not just aged with time but also tragedy. His experiences bringing him sights he couldn’t have imagined, nor would have ever wanted to. His expression wasn’t one of sadness, just despair. His head hung as he walked on, his free hand in the pocket of his coat as if looking for something.

He stopped and gently placed his case on the ground once more, having found what he was searching for.

“We’re being cloaked by the Tardis.” The Doctor said without turning to his companion. “He can’t see us.”

 

The man pulled a blue scarf from his pocket and lifted his arm to wrap it around his neck. He struggled, his joints stiff and achy. And Sherlock knew.

He knew that scarf. It was his scarf.

He knew that man.

He felt his heart sink to the pit of his stomach. This old man was his only friend. John Watson.

“He’s still alive.” Sherlock was baffled.

“If you call this being alive, then yes.”

They watched as he slowly struggled his way out of the alleyway and onto the street. He joined the rainbow crowd, walking along the edge of it to keep out of people’s way. They passed him at some speed, the old man’s pace much slower than the young people around him. He waited at the crosswalk to change direction, not glancing at the cars or people until the lights had changed and indicated it was his turn to walk. 

He tried his best to avoid them, but it was a challenge. Sherlock and the Doctor watched in silent horror as people gave John looks of disgust, as if he were intruding on their crosswalk. They saw a man in a hover taxi flip him the bird and shout obscenities at him for taking too long. They watched was people knocked arms with him, knocking his case from his hands and leaving him to labor to retrieve it. This man who was a doctor. This man who fought for his country. This man who saved people on countless occasions. They watched as their nation’s citizens treated him like dirt. And they watched him take it in silence.

It was a few blocks of this before he turned and entered a small brownstone. 1642 Wiltshire Road. It seemed like a quiet neighbourhood, the streets dressed with buildings not much different than those of fifty years ago. It seemed like the kind of place John would fit in and be happy at.

Sherlock didn’t get a chance to speak before the Doctor depocketed his sonic and scanned the two of them. He pointed the device at the building, and they were beamed inside.

They watched from the stairway as John double locked the front door. Two kids in their early twenties raced past him, jolting John back into the thick wooden doors. They laughed at whatever game they were playing, not having noticed the man who’d entered. Stairs adjacent the door led up, and John headed straight for them.

He fought himself to make it up the fifteen steps, resting half way up to rub his leg. He didn’t use the cane, but it was clear it still have him trouble sometimes. He reached the top and stopped. The door immediate his right was marked with a B. He dropped his case once more and fought with the locks again.

He opened the door to a small room, furnished with only a bar fridge, a dresser, small desk and chair, a laptop that looked more than ten years old, and a single bed. 

John left his case by the door and removed his coat. He placed it on the empty hook ay the door. The other rung being occupied by a light windbreaker, the only other coat John owned. He sat on the bed to remove his shoes, placing them at the foot, at the ready for the next morning. He left his once-cream colored jumper on, even though it was now clear to Sherlock he was also wearing a button down shirt under it.

John took one deep breath in as he sat alone in his room. The room that contained his life.

Sherlock noted there were no photographs in the room. No pictures of his sister, any friends or other family he might have had. There was a calendar posted to the wall next to the desk. It read the month as August, but it was clearly too cold out to be summer. The photograph of the month was an empty beach.

“John set up that little practice three years after you’d left. It prospered for a few decades, until his patients started to pass on, and progress in the city pushed him to the outer fringes.”

The Doctor went on as the two watched John, who silently moved to start his laptop.

“He doesn’t keep friends. None since you staged your death. He never married. Never had any little Johns’. Harry died eighteen years on. He’s lived in this small room for the last thirty years. He hasn’t had a patient in more than a decade. He doesn’t speak to anyone else who lives here. He hasn’t spoken a word in thirteen years.”

John, now wearing the glasses he needed to read, watched as the old Windows 14 logo slowly rolled onto his screen. He hunched over the keyboard, moving his face closer to the display. 

His home screen was a snow scene. A log cabin in the woods, smoke billowing from its chimney. A cardinal resting on a tree branch. It was one of several options that came with the Windows layout. John clicked one of the six windows he had on his home screen. The internet loaded at a pace to rival the initial start up and John started to type the name of a website.

He typed one letter. 

j. 

One, solitary lower case j. The field automatically filled in the site address and John clicked the return. His old blog loaded.

Sherlock stared in wonder for the second time in his entire existence. John watched the blog for a moment, as if checking for something. He scanned the page, scrolling as he went, checking the number of comments, checking the number on the hit counter.

Everything remained unchanged. Every single thing.

“That brilliant, brave soldier that was your only friend is turned into this disheveled, disillusioned shell of a person. This is what becomes of Dr. John Hamish Watson.”


End file.
